


A Future in Politics

by Kizmet



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie) Spoilers, Gen, Not Steve Friendly, Post-Avengers: Infinity War Part 1 (Movie), steve rogers is a hypocrite
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-05-25
Updated: 2018-05-25
Packaged: 2019-05-13 16:20:32
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/14752224
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Kizmet/pseuds/Kizmet
Summary: Steve Rogers has an uncanny ability to make whatever comes out of his mouth sound like unassailable truth... Even when it contradicts what he said earlier… Without ever admitted he was wrong in the first place or even that he changed his mind.But what if people actually brought up the inconsistencies instead of just accepting whatever Steve said most recently as true.





	A Future in Politics

**Sacrifice**

Wanda turned on the news. She needed to know what the consequences of her mistake in Lagos had been.

“Eleven Wakandans were among those killed during a confrontation between the Avengers and a group of mercenaries in Lagos, Nigeria, last month. The traditionally reclusive Wakandans were on an outreach mission in Lagos when the attack occurred,” One reporter announced before putting up a clip of King T’Chaka speaking to the UN:

“Our people's blood is spilled on foreign soil. Not only because of the actions of criminals, but by the indifference of those pledged to stop them. Victory at the expense of the innocent, is no victory at all.”

“They are operating outside and above the international law. Because that's the reality, if we don't respond to acts like these...” a second reporter added. “What legal authority does an enhanced individual like Wanda Maximoff have to operate in Nigeri -”

The TV turned off abruptly. Wanda turned to see Steve standing in the doorway, the remote in his hand.

“It's my fault,” Wanda said, tears in her eyes.

Steve shook his head, “That's not true.”

“Turn the TV back on,” Wands said. “They're being very specific.”

“I should've clocked that bomb vest long before you had to deal with it,” Steve sighed as he walked over to sit beside Wanda. “Rumlow said ‘Bucky’ and… all of a sudden I was a 16-year-old kid again, in Brooklyn. And people died. It's on me.”

“It's on both of us,” Wanda replied, feeling obligated to take some of the weight off Steve’s shoulders.

“This job… We try to save as many people as we can. Sometimes that doesn't mean everybody. But if we can't find a way to live with that, next time… maybe nobody gets saved,” Steve said sincerely.

Wanda suddenly remembered another day, in Sokovia against Ultron. _As they flew into Sokovian airspace Steve Rogers gave his team a last warning: “Ultron knows we're coming. Odds are we'll be riding into heavy fire, and that's what we signed up for. But the people of Sokovia, they didn't. So our priority is getting them out. All they want is to live their lives in peace, and that's not going to happen today. But we can do our best to protect them. And we can get the job done, and find out what Ultron's been building. We find Romanoff, and we clear the field. Keep the fight between us. Ultron thinks we're monsters and we're what's wrong with the world. This isn't just about beating him. It's about whether he's right.”_

“In Sokovia you told Stark that we would not ‘leave this rock with one civilian on it’,” Wanda said frowning slightly. “You told us all to die before accepting one civilian casualty. But the people of Lagos were not our priority, we made no particular effort to shield them from harm because warning them to clear the area, warning the police of the attack we believed was coming might have warned Rumlow of our ambush. We put stopping Rumlow over the safety of the people of Lagos. Are civilian casualties only important when the villain challenges us to save them?”

“No, of course not!” Steve exclaimed. “When you moved the bomb off the street you reduced casualties-”

“I panicked,” Wanda interjected. “I moved it away from you, away from me, without considering where I was putting it.”

Steve ignored her. “If Rumlow had gotten that biological weapon out of Nigerian, if he’d been able to put it into use in a plan-”

“We thought Rumlow was going after the police station, not the CDC building,” Wanda said.

“It was just a good thing that we were there,” Steve finished firmly.

Wanda blinked at him, somehow she felt like her concerns hadn’t really been addressed but Steve sounded so sure of himself it was hard to continue arguing and really, she didn’t want to feel bad about the people who’d died in Lagos, it was nice to be assured that everyone who was unhappy about what they’d done was wrong.

 

* * *

 

“We don’t trade lives,” Steve stated firmly, nixing Vision’s plan to sacrifice himself to stop Thanos. Vision frowned, reviewing memory files he’d received from J.A.R.V.I.S.: _“The only thing you really fight for is yourself. You're not the guy to make the sacrifice play, to lay down on a wire and let the other guy crawl over you.”_ And later when Coulson died. _“He was out of his league. He should have waited. He should have…” Tony had protested and in response the Captain had said..._

“Sometimes there isn't a way out,” Vision repeated. “You said that once. I believe that is the case now. We must keep Thanos from the Infinity Stones. We have the means to destroy the Mind Stone, we have an opportunity. Given the threat against us, I believe it is necessary for me to… ‘lay down on the wire’ for benefit of the rest of the universe. As you said in Sokovia: We signed up for this. _I_ signed up for this.”

Steve pulled Vision aside. “Think of what it would do to Wanda,” he said. “She’s lost so much already.”

Reluctantly Vision nodded, _‘If the situation becomes more desperate it will still be possible to revert to my original plan.’_

Several hours later Steve watched in horror as Bucky crumbled into ash. _‘I shouldn’t have stopped Vision,’ he couldn’t help but think. ‘He’s dead now anyway, along with Wanda. If we’d just destroyed the Mind Stone back at the Compound maybe Thanos wouldn’t have been able to turn time back far enough to reverse it… Well really if Strange and Tony had of done their job and kept the Time Stone out of Thanos’ hands in the first place he wouldn’t have been able to turn back time. Now that I think about it, it was really their fault.’_

 

* * *

 

**Transparency**

Freshly back from a compromised rescue mission Steve glared disapprovingly at Nick Fury. “You just can't stop yourself from lying, can you?” he snapped.

“I didn't lie,” Fury said blandly. “Agent Romanoff had a different mission than yours.”

 “Which you didn't feel obliged to share,” Steve pointed out.

Fury gave him an unimpressed look. “I'm not obliged to do anything.”

“Those hostages could've died, Nick,” Steve protested.

“I sent the greatest soldier in history to make sure that didn't happen.”

 “Soldiers trust each other, that's what makes it an army,” Steve declared. “Not a bunch of guys running around and shooting guns.”

The Avengers, particularly after S.H.I.E.L.D. fell, weren’t really an army and Stark had always been quick to point out that he wasn’t a soldier but Steve knew that transparency was for the best. _“Sometimes my teammates don't tell me things. I was kind of hoping Thor would be the exception.”_ He needed to know everything that could affect his team. Just look at what happened when he didn’t:

_“You know Ultron is trying to tear us apart, right?” Tony said._

_“Well I guess you'd know,” Steve snapped back. “Whether you tell us is a bit of a question.”_

Fifteen minutes later the Avengers were being debriefed by not even slightly dead Nick Fury. Tony Stark and Bruce Banner were startled to learn that the man was alive but too wrung out by the day’s events to be particularly upset. Steve and Natasha traded a look and decided it was probably better not to let on that they’d know about Fury’s survival within hours of him faking his death. _‘It’s not like it serves any point to let them know now… I’ll have to remind Sam not to bring up knowing Fury wasn’t dead the next time I see him.’_

 

* * *

 

Steve and Wanda spent a moment staring at the building where Rumlow’s bomb had gone off in horror. “There might be survivors,” Steve said collecting himself.

Wanda swallowed harshly, her mind fled back to the two days she’d spent trapped in her family’s home while she and her twin waited to be rescued, she jogged after Steve silently toward the sight of her terrible mistake.

“Wanda, are you steady enough to levitate me up there?” Steve asked gesturing to the smoking hole in the side of the building. They could both see that the structural integrity of the building had been compromised and it was only a matter of time before the floors above the hole caved in, and when they fell it would probably bring the whole building down. But there were already police running toward the entrances, they could evacuate the floors below the damage. “I’m going to need your help getting the injured down as well,” Steve continued. He worried that the stairwells might be blocked to the levels above the damage too but… One problem at a time.

Wanda nodded, gathered herself and lifted Steve smoothly up to the hole. He leapt in and started looking for survivors. Natasha and Sam joined them a little later. Sam joined Steve in locating survivors above the blast and moving them to a point where Wanda or standard rescue crews could get them out of the building while Natasha helped the police and other rescue workers evacuate the lower floors.

Tired, dirty and depressed after seeing bodies of those he was too late to save, Steve jumped back to the street only to walk into Natasha being shouted at by one of the ranking police officers. “You knew that something was going to happen!” the man shouted. “You knew and you told us nothing! How are we to do our jobs? To protect our people if information like this is kept from us? I would expect it from foreign governments but I thought you heroes were supposed to be better than that! You left my people to suffer so that you could ambush your enemy here, not in one of your cities!”

“Once we realized that the CDC was Rumlow’s target there wasn’t time to alert anyone,” Steve said sternly as he inserted himself between Natasha and the angry officer.

“You knew enough to come to our country in the first place,” the officer protested. “You had time to come, but not time to inform us?”

“We did our best to help.”

 

* * *

 

 _“I know I hurt you, Tony. I guess I thought by not telling you about your parents I was sparing you, but I can see now that I was really sparing myself, and I'm sorry.”_ Tony cursed his brain. Steve’s aggravating letter just wouldn’t quit playing in his head like the the most tinny, out of tune rendition of “It’s a Small World” imaginable.

Tony glanced at the flip phone. He knew it was a terrible idea but when had that ever stopped him. He pulled up the one programed number and hit call.

“Tony!”

_‘Of course Steve sounded appropriately worried and of course if I’d actually needed help Steve would be a half a world away and much too late to do anything but it was the thought that counted right?’_

“So, you pretty much knew about my parents being murdered and probably that your buddy was behind it ever since you and Natashalie’s little data dump right?” Tony said. “Which would have been roughly a year before you lit into me about keeping secrets. Right? And you were still keeping that information from me roughly a year after your tirade about secrets. Yeah?

“You and Natashalie knew all about Fury’s pretend death, you knew Maria Hill was actually working for him all along, keeping tabs on me for him. So lets be honest here, Rogers: You don’t really have a problem with secrets as long as you’re the one keeping them. And the only thing you’re really sorry about is getting caught.”

Tony hung up before Steve could say anything. He looked at the flip-phone with a new appreciation. “Well, at least that made up for his fucked-up non-apology,” he said to himself. “Even if it doesn’t do a damn thing for the shit he wasn’t really apologizing for.”

**Author's Note:**

> If I look at this as character evolution rather than inconsistency in writing then over the course of the movies Steve has become more willing to sacrifice civilian lives and less willing accept losses among people he knows personally. Except for Bucky, right from the beginning Steve was completely unwilling to accept Bucky’s loss and that hasn’t changed.


End file.
